Monday, March 20, 2017

18. EXTRAORDINARY

Yesterday
in church one of our speakers talked about someone being extraordinary. He used
the term repeatedly. Each time that he said it, a nonsensical bell kept dinging
in my head, making the term sound more and more odd when I thought about it. It
reminded me of that time when I was five years old and I got this thought in my
head that noses were strange things. I pondered, as any five-year-old might,
how odd it is that we have these things poking out of the middle of our faces,
with holes in them. I spent a good week staring at people’s faces, trying to
imagine them without their noses. One must use kindergarten logic when
analyzing this behavior.

So
yesterday, sitting in the choir seats at church, I finally leaned over to my
friend and whispered that I thought the word “extraordinary” was an odd word.
She sat for half a minute, looking up toward the right quadrant of her brain,
and then leaned back over toward me and whispered, “How so?”

“Wouldn’t
you think that if someone was extra ordinary that they would be super-duper
average? Like, extra ordinary, not just plain old ordinary?”

She
paused a while, and we listened to more of his talk, then she leaned over and
said “I think you’re right.”

I
used to think I was personally called to be a missionary for diversity in a
pretty Wonder Bread white toast community. And I think I have succeeded
somewhat in that, as my garage does not look neat and tidy like my neighbors’
garages do, and I don’t go to the gym, and the lights are still burning through
our kitchen windows into the late-late night, when everyone else except for my
sisters’ are long dark. I am chubby but jolly, and I waddle when I walk. This
keeps the angle of our world turning as it should, slightly off center.

When
I get to feeling a little above average in some things, I am blessed to be
reminded by someone or other, or something or other, that I am pretty much
ordinary. For instance, a few years ago my friend Glen Leonard wrote a play
commemorating the birthday of the prophet Joseph Smith. He asked if I would
write songs for it, which I did. Glen was a historian for the LDS church and
has published many books, and I was honored to work with him. He was also our
stake president. We performed the play for our stake. Afterward a fellow from
the stake, a member of the high council, came up and asked if I had written the
songs. I answered yes, to which he replied. “They were quite nice. In fact, I
think they were even above average.”

“Why,
thank you.” I said. Mom always told me to just smile and say thank you when
someone pays you a compliment.

So
if you ever hear me saying that I think I am extraordinary, I hope you
understand that I am just that…extra-super-duper-run-of-the-mill-ordinary.

Years
ago, when we had just moved to Farmington from Pittsburgh, I was out in the
lobby of the church during Sacrament meeting, trying to keep my wiggling
toddler from destroying the reverence in the chapel. I got to talking to
Bernice Smith, an old Farmington treasure who lives down on Main Street. We had
moved into Somerset Farm, those nice new houses on the hill, and I guess there
was a little eyebrow raising from the old timers at this fresh new crop of
suburbanites coming into Farmington. As the Sacrament ended and I was gathering
up my little squirmy worm to go back in with the rest of the family, I told
Bernice how great it was to chat with her. She said to me, “You’re just an old
dirt farmer, aren’t you?” Then she gave me a hug. A big old dirt farmer to dirt
farmer hug!

Best
compliment I ever got.

I
like being ordinary. I want there to be splatterings on my kitchen stove. I
want the grass to be worn down under the swings in our yard. I want to have
dirt under my fingernails, and a fallen-over pile of pillows stacked in the
corner of my bedroom for tired grandchildren. And the broken gate that allows
people to pass from our side of the neighborhood to the other side of the
neighborhood? It can remain broken, and the grass through it can be worn down,
too. I will never be a spit-!shine kind of gal, even though now and then I try
to fake that I can be. Truth is, I am not only just plain ordinary…I am
extraordinary. Extra-ordinarily extra ordinary.

2 comments:

Oh Sister you are beyond ordinary in every good way. You know how to make a house a home. No matter who walks through your door they are greeted with love unfeigned. We always want to be there. Thank you for your welcoming heart and your incomparable gift that you share with all of us.